This post is about the discrepancy between a superfast internet – responsive images, high resolution displays, connection speed, HD video – and the economical footprint.
Nowadays there is a major buzz about the web that should serve the right image for the right device: a very detailed image for a high resolution (Retina) displays, a small, less detailed images for mobile phones on slow (3G) connections and, more detailed images for smartphones on fast WIFI connections.
Most discussed arguments are about resolution, connection type, speed, bandwidth and latency. What I miss is the economical part of the issue: money and `ecological footprint`. Sometimes you pay per MB on mobile networks (3G), or on WIFI-networks at airports or hotels. I guess you’re happy with a low resolution advertisement image when you can save a couple of euros.
Not only real money, they’re other, so called external costs. Cost that are not paid for by the user. I still feel that watching a HD movie on YouTube has a bigger ecological footprint then a low resolution movie. It needs more servers, a bigger harddisk, more bandwidth, in short more energy and hardware, so it raises the bill. But in real life you probably don’t pay extra for it, maybe some waiting-time, because most providers offer `flat fee` subscription.
So Hipsters, if you do care about the Environment, better watch your internet movies on low resolution screens. Don’t buy the new Apple Retina screens, they’re the Hummers of the internet.
That said, they just started to talk about cost in the specs, and they call it, euphemistically, a metered connection and describe it as an outstanding issue that is hard to implement.
As said before, most internet services are now provided as flat fee. I wonder if, and when, we will have actually start paying for real usage (Mbs). It’s economically a good idea, pay for what you get, and it will actually help to solve a couple of problems (hard to implement). Let’s see how fast problems are solved once you have to pay for it.
Maybe we will, some marketing theory claims you should raise the price, once you have a saturated market. For mobile internet, you actually pay a lot lately in the Netherlands, no flat fee anymore. There is no fun in YouTube, it’s fucking expensive, the old newspaper is a bargain.